Overview and benefit

This activity is a matching game where children try to pair up animal cards with pictures of where they live This teaches children about the animals they would find on a farm and some of the buildings that are used to house them. As a matching and sorting activity it is also good for their problem solving skills and their visual memories.

Equipment required

Duration

How it works

Children are given pictures of different farm animals and asked to match their animal with the picture of its home around the room. Pictures include:

Pig – sty

Chicken – hen house

Cow – barn

Horse – stable

Dog – kennel

Sheep – field

Bird – nest

What to do in the class

You will have 7 A4 pictures of places animals live. Stick this around the hall walls with blu tak. You will have small pictures of 7 different animals (you will need lots of copies of each). Laminate these and put a small piece of blu tak on the back of each. Give each child an animal card and ask the child to find where that animal lives and put their card next to it on the wall. The first few times you do this, you could give the children a ‘clue’ by already sticking up one card of each animal on its home picture so the children who find it hard can start just by matching their animals.

Alternatively, you could make a ‘house’ for each of the animals and put underneath the corresponding large home picture. These could be empty tissue boxes covered in brown paper. When children find the correct picture of their home, they post their small animal picture into the box beneath.

The small animal pictures could be given out by the instructor to each child as and when they have posted or stuck up their last animal. Alternatively, give each adult a small bag containing the pictures of each animal and ask the children to take out a picture one at a time. This will ensure they visited all 7 homes and will avoid crowds around the instructor. If time is tight, only put 4 pictures into the bag.

Possible background music for the activity:

Old MacDonald

Dingle Dangle Scarecrow

Oats Peas Beans and Barley Grow

Adaptation for older/younger children

For younger children use a smaller selection of animals and homes, perhaps just four.

What to do in a nursery setting

Give each child a couple of Animal cards and have them sit on the floor in front of you. Hold up and an A4 card and ask ‘Who lives in this house, have you got an animal that would live here. Praise the children who give the correct response and praise all for trying too.